Parent’s Guide – Hard Reset Redux

Hard Reset Redux is the latest FPS from Flying Wild Hog and Gambitious Digital Entertainment. Set in one of the last remaining human cities of Bezoar, your character Major Fletcher, is dragged into a conflict between two of mankind’s greatest enemies. Es ever you can read the full review just below, as well as our Parent’s Guide review and video

As soon as we began working our way through the first mission it was obvious this was going to be a return to the classic FPS of past games such as Doom and Quake and I couldn’t wait to get on with it. A good mix of insane blaster action coupled with a puzzle element keep you on your toes as you progress through wave after wave of pesky AI enemies, each a steampunk inspired mix of whirring claws, buzz saw blades and bipedal metal monstrosities armed with a variety of bullet slinging weapons. Kamikaze style rolling bombs, that explode on proximity, keep you on your toes and force you to rush around creating trains of enemies that you can line up and mow down using the good variety of upgradeable guns at your disposal. As you move through the levels you pick up health regen packs and ammo clips for the two guns you carry, a heavy machine gun and a plasma cannon, as well as work toward upgrading these with add ons. One of the most useful we’ve found is the plasma grenade launcher that fires out a frag which then discharges a huge amount of electricity over an area. Deadly and looks awesome too!

The graphics are slick enough and deal with the frenetic action really well. Sometimes things get insane with bullets flying everywhere, explosions left and right, and chunks of robotic enemy surrounding you, and even then we’ve not experienced a drop in frame rate. The backdrops are beautiful and help to set the scene in a Bladerunner-esque city scape with the detritus of the city in contrast to the bright neon billboards. Sound is a huge factor in gameplay and this game doesn’t fall short of the mark there either. With our headset on and with the bass up the destruction looks and sounds glorious with plenty of explosions during the harder battles and good atmospherics as you progress through the game. The story is played out using comic strip scenes with dialogue spoken and flashed up in speech bubbles. Some of the speech is pretty comical, and cheesier than a mature cheddar factory, but in a way this sort of tongue in cheek wooden dialogue lends itself well to the game, and this coupled with the over the top, all guns blazing action gives the game a Sci-Fi B movie quality that is actually quite endearing.

Throughout the game you come across puzzle style sections that require you to complete small tasks in order. Some areas that need to be accessed can only be done by taking out barrier power supplies or blasting your way through walls for instance to get to the next section of that particular level. These are well thought out but some of the ones in the early levels are a little too easy. It’s done to get you used to going through the process but it may be too simple, even if you’ve never played a game like this before. One small complaint from us is the lack of quick map or level and sometimes it’s a little easy to get lost. Frantically running around looking for a way into the next area of a level could have been avoided by the inclusion of a mini map, but the linear nature of each mission means that making your way back to the start and retracing your steps is no huge ordeal, just a littletime consuming.

At the end of each level you’re presented with a readout that highlights how many times you died, how many bots you killed, secrets that you have found and other stats, appealing to the die hards among us, and adding to replayability, and there are a good number of Xbox achievements to work towards too.

Overall a very playable game with plenty to keep you busy and some maniacally hard gameplay that give oodles of satisfying bang for your buck. If you’re a die hard FPS fan then this game is one for you. If you’re not overly enamoured by the genre, it’s still worth a look, and for the relatively cheap price tag, it’s definitely worth a punt.

The Run down

Graphics: 8/10: Hard Reset is certainly a good looking game. The most impressive thing here really is the frame rate, which we’ve not had drop even in frantic situations

Story: 9/10: Another high score here. While you might expect a title such as this to be light on story, we’ve actually found an intriguing and well thought out narrative through what we’ve played so far.

Sound: 9/10:As normal the soundtrack blends into the background well here, but the impressive thing for us is the high quality sound coming with gunfire and explosions, as well as the sound effects for the enemies faced along the way

Replayability: 8/10:With the stats lining up at the end of each level, there’s a decent amount of replayability here, as we go back to defeat ourselves time after time (or try to, anyway)

Satisfaction: 9/10:a solid hit in the Pixel Bandits’ office. Hard Reset Redux has an old feel to it, with the echoes of Quake and Doom from decades past. It’s been brought up to date though, and the graphics, sound and story all come together to give sometihng which feels nostalgic, but handles like a dream.

Our video below will take us through the full Parent’s Guide for Hard Reset Redux, including review and PEGI run through